That the above cannot now be classed among _living_ inscriptions is entirely to be ascribed to the zeal for clean walls exhibited by Her Majesty's Commissioners of Woods and Forests, under whose auspices the renovation of our cathedral has been accomplished. I regret to mention some other memorials have also disappeared, long familiar to the eye of the antiquary--not granting but that these gentlemen have a power to do what they please; however, _en passant_, we would entreat, if they can, to lay on their hands as charily as possible when such innocent matters come in their way. Though the following well-known lines-- "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, To dig the dust inclosed here; Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones"-- be not literally applicable in the present case, they breathe such a spirit as would almost make any one "nervous" in tampering with revered and time-honoured relics nearly become sacred. Glasgow does not appear at all rich in dial erections; the only one I know of is in our old street the Gallowgate (or _Gallow's Gate_; as you would say, _the road to Tyburn_), on the south front of a tenement, with no motto, but date 1708. Our long fame for numerous public clocks and excellent bells, according to the ancient adage-- "_Glasgow for bells_, Linlithgow for wells, Falkirk for beans and pease, Edinburgh for wh----s and thieves," together with our frequent wet murky atmosphere, may all have contributed to the unfavourableness of endeavouring to mark the flight of Time through the medium of the solar rays. The cities and villages under the sunny skies of southern climates, and where also appears a better taste generally than with us for inscriptions on public and private monuments, would, I think, be the richest field for HERMES to explore. I speak from some little observation in a tour of France and Italy, &c., in the year 1846. Sun-dials were to me objects of curiosity, but not of that importance as to be engrossing. On a loose memorandum I have the two following mottoes which particularly struck me, but have not preserved a note of the places, that I think lay on the route from Florence to Bologna:-- (Latin Englished) "This dial indicates every hour to man but his last." "Se il Sol benigno, mi concede il raggio, L'ora ti mostra, è il ciel ti dia buon viaggio." On a building near the Cathedral of Geneva, there is rather a novel and curious example of the sun-dial, in a perpendicular line bisected on each side by two curves, the curve on the one side _black_, the other _gilded_, with the following:-- "Fait en 1778--Restauré en 1824, La Courbe noire Indique le Midi du 21 Juin au 21 Décembre, et la Courbe dorée du 21 Décembre au 21 Juin."